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My first sketchbook...

I've been looking at lots of sketchbooks for about a year now and I finally decided to start my own. Right now I'm working as a part time graphic designer. I've been really pushing myself more this past month to further improve on my painting and drawing skills. As I'm getting older I realize that I need to be at a certain level and I don't feel like I am. I started a blog of my drawings about a year or two ago but no one looks at it or gives me any feedback. That is also another reason why I'm starting a sketchbook. The truth is, even though I've been working hard, I've been feeling a little depressed and discouraged because I feel like I'm not improving fast enough and I notice that some people don't need to work as hard as me and they are still a million times better. I just don't think that's fair and I don't get why it takes me longer to remember and understand things. I'm hoping to reach out more to the conceptart community and to hopefully get some encouragement and feedback. The illustrations below are pretty old but the sketches and painting studies are pretty recent. Hope you enjoy and I hope to learn and improve on here. If you would like to visit my website as well, you can go to my site here.

A rough painting I did today...

This is a rough painting I did in the early afternoon. It's nothing special. Just a painting of a spoon. I probably spent about an hour on it. I didn't really feel like finishing it because there are other things that I want to do. Enjoy and comments and crits always welcome. This was done in Photoshop.www.IanTopple.comSketchbook

Last edited by Istmin52; February 14th, 2010 at 01:36 PM.
Reason: I forgot to add something

Page from sketchbook...

I decided to practice drawing animals from memmory. This is what I came up with. I'm not completely satisfied with the more rendered sketch from below. What do you guys think? I guess I could have worked on it more but my laptop is dying so I need to plug it back in.

some nice stuff here.
you asked for some feedback on the last sketch. it's creepy enouph as is, but looks alittle odd only having an animal head and the rest humanoid. is it a sort of frankenstien creation, stitched together pieces, but with animals? i think you could push the idea abit more in the rest of the body. maybe even break up the face with pieces of the horse mixed with a person. like a normal persons face with big horse teeth and eyes, idk.
anyway, post more

Another update...

vearitas - Thanks for the comment. I wasn't necessarily focusing on the concept of the drawing. When I'm drawing in my sketchbook, not everything is meant to be a good concept. It's more just for practice in drawing and seeing if I'm capable of drawing what I want from imagination. But thanks for the comment. I never really thought about it that way before.
What I meant was I wasn't really satisfied with the way I painted it.

Anyway, this is another update. The painting of the digital camera is something I did a while ago but I felt like posting it. I worked a little more on the sketch I made from yesterday. I think the main problem I had was that I really didn't know what color I wanted for it in the first place so I ended up really struggling with it. I decided to stop working on it because I want to move. I didn't get to do much drawing because I've been trying to build up a web design portfolio so I really need to do that. Comments and opinions always welcome. See ya.

hey, nice sketchbook dude! I can totally relate about getting depressed with art...it hurts to see people younger than me who are so much further along. But...I guess it's just something you have to work through.

You asked me about rendering though, so this is what I know...the first thing you do is divide your subject into light and shadow, using only two values. Once that looks right, you can move to half tones and dark darks. It's super important to keep the values organized; you're supposed to know which parts of the painting are in light and in shadow at all times. And make sure when you go lighter or darker it's a conscious decision.

I hope that helps anyways...there are definitely threads floating about that explain it much better than I could.

Looks like your best rendering is coming through on that image with the Cartman key chain. You can't help but improve through doing studies of different materials in different lighting conditions.

Jason Manley's color theory had a section about doing studies using only black objects on a white background, and vice versa, some with colored lights. I am sure that is the type of thing they do at the atelier to get perfect color and value rendering.

another painting...

septomin, BRANDONJONES -- Thanks for commenting on my sketchbook. Yea I watched Jason Manleys color theory video stream about a couple of weeks ago. It was def helpful and I should probably rewatch it. It was a lot of information to take in at once. I think the reason why the Cartman keychain was rendered well was because it had really strong lighting. My still life's lately have had very subtle light.

Anyway, I didn't have much time to sketch today. I've been in the process of learning Actionscript 3.0 and also working on a website to build up my portfolio. I tend to notice that Dreamweaver has a lot of little glitches so I'm not sure if I'm going to continue using Dreamweaver. I might switch to text mate. I'll see.

I ended up doing a painting of my driveway. It's not finished yet but I was trying to block in the shapes first. I don't tend to paint outdoor scenes as much because they aren't as convenient when I could easily put an object in front of my to paint. I should do more of them. I think the reason why I don't necessarily is because I'm afraid because there is so much stuff sometimes to look at and to paint that I get overwhelmed and I'm afraid the painting will turn out bad so I get discouraged.

More progress...

I ended up working more on this painting. I'm making some progress but I've having some trouble painting certain details on the bushes. When I paint them, they look like globs of paint right now but I think my values look accurate. I don't get what I'm doing wrong. Any advice. More to come soon...

some hand studies and something from imagination...

I have been doing some hand studies lately so I decided to post them. I also am trying to paint this goat like creature for fun. I still don't feel confident rendering form from memory yet and yes I know what you are going to say. Paint still lifes and landscapes, etc, etc. and yes I've been painting a lot more than I ever did but I'm still struggling a bit. I have def learned a lot but I feel like I'm busting my ass and yet I see people who are younger than me and they are an exceedingly higher level. I really wish someone told me that I should have been doing this stuff since High School. Sorry for venting. Comments and suggestions?